Applying the readiness to change model to implementation of family intervention for serious mental illness.

Family intervention for serious mental illness is known to be highly efficacious in reducing patient relapse, improving social functioning, enhancing caregivers' knowledge of mental illness, and ultimately reducing overall costs of care. However, very few families receive services. The reasons for this gap between empirical findings and program implementation are complex and not yet fully understood. Prochaska and DiClemente's Readiness to Change Model provides a helpful structure for understanding key issues for the four relevant stakeholders (patients, family members, clinicians and administrators). Staging each stakeholder group and applying corresponding "interventions" (processes of change) are useful in a site's implementation of family services.